What keeps you smiling,
Oh Africa!?
What keeps you cheering
even when, for you, there is nothing
to cheer about?
With all the problems that you have,
have had,
and are still having,
what gives you the strength
for happiness?
With all the agony that you have undergone,
and are still undergoing,
both past and present,
what gives you the hope to keep on smiling
and to carry on cheerfully
as you have been?
As it was in the past,
I still hear the agonizing cry
of your children all over the world;
I still hear their moans and their heart-rending groans
throughout your shores;
I hear their laborious grunts in Haiti, in Darfur, in Brazil, in Nigeria, and in the Americas.
Yet, whenever I turn around to look
at you,
I see nothing but a smiling black face
that does not seem distressed
by the riches that all the world
belabor their mind about.
Whenever I take the time to think
of you, I hear the drumbeat
of joy
that is an indelible aspect of you,
and I wonder.
Were I naive, were I ignorant,
and were I foolish not to know
that the smiling face of a broken heart does not reveal the pervasive pain that the heart is actually feeling,
I would have labeled your act the hoodwink of one
aimlessly and shamelessly parading herself
like a prostitute
on the face of the earth.
But I know better, and I know enough
to know
that no amount of pain
in this world
can stop the teeth from biting food,
and no amount of worldly agony
or disaster
can prevent it from laughing
or smiling.
So smile on, Africa,
smile on!
Hello @blurt-148706
#blurtbooster
#beblurt
#blurtpower
Reference: The Drumbeat of the Ants
